D&D General A Gruumsh Of A Different Type

[Minigiant]

Gruumsh as a god of fury, destruction, and battle works. He represents the chaos, destruction, and unpredictability that exists in battle as well as the fury and adrenaline that pushes soldiers of all peoples forward. Yes, there is slaughter too, but battle is rarely pretty or won without bloodshed, particularly the bloodshed of infantry. Generals and nobles may offer prayers to gods of strategy and conquest, but the rank and file soldiers of the world who bleed and have battle scars call upon Gruumsh. Gruumsh One-Eyed was injured on the frontlines of combat and therefore knows pain of the soldier unlike the war gods of the backline or who bark orders from the safety of their camps. To be a god of bloodshed is not only to celebrate the blood shed by foes but also the blood shed by you and your allies to win victory.

Would that make Maglubiyet, Corellon, and Bane the war gods of the backline?

Frontline: warriors
Gruumsh
Bahamut
Tiamat
Moradin

Backline: commanders, warmages, and archers
Maglubiyet
Corellon
Bane

 

[Tonguez]

I thought orcs were Mongols? Or was it general Asians? Blacks? Slavics?

Orcs are English, Gruumsh makes a great god for the Britons - a warlike people who traditionally live in primitive, damp and unsanitary conditions they punish almost any act of disobedience, from theft to associating with Gypsies, with death. The Britons are renowned and feared for their prowess in war and are constantly in conflict with neighbouring peoples, even raiding and conquering lands and taking slaves on distant continents. Plus Gruumsh one-eye already has the perfect set up for a pirate captain of the admiralty...

 

[Aldarc]

@Minigiant, I'm pulling from my modified Dawn War pantheon. In my altered Dawn War pantheon, Gruumsh was the child of Bane and Melora. Bane seduced Melora after he saw that his brother Moradin fathered the mighty Kord with Melora. Though Gruumsh was a fierce fighter, Bane was disappointed that Gruumsh was born lacking his discipline and insight, but, rather, with his mother's wilder tendencies. However, Gruumsh is said to follow in his father's wake. So orcs of my version of the Nentir Vale typically venerate the family of earth/war deities that include Gruumsh, Bane, Melora, Moradin, Avandra (also a daughter of Moradin and Melora), and Kord. But soldiers of all peoples typically regard Gruumsh as their patron god.

 

[Minigiant]

@Minigiant, I'm pulling from my modified Dawn War pantheon. In my altered Dawn War pantheon, Gruumsh was the child of Bane and Melora. Bane seduced Melora after he saw that his brother Moradin fathered the mighty Kord with Melora. Though Gruumsh was a fierce fighter, Bane was disappointed that Gruumsh was born lacking his discipline and insight, but, rather, with his mother's wilder tendencies. However, Gruumsh is said to follow in his father's wake. So orcs of my version of the Nentir Vale typically venerate the family of earth/war deities that include Gruumsh, Bane, Melora, Moradin, Avandra (also a daughter of Moradin and Melora), and Kord. But soldiers of all peoples typically regard Gruumsh as their patron god.

That is interesting. So in your Nentir Vale, what is the main differences between Gruumsh Bane, Kord, and Bahamut as war gods?

---

In my speculated generic god pantheon, deities are divided into royal, noble, warrior, and folk. All warriors of all races would venerate. all the war(rior) gods. There's war god of duels, a war god of offense and brutality, a war god of defense and protection, a war god of naval combat. a war god of officers and tactics, a war god of levies and common soldiers.

Gruumsh would be the Warior god of Offense or the Warrior god of Soldiers in this world. One of the Warrior gods denied from being the Noble god of Knights and very angry about it.

 

[Fenris-77]

If you picture Grummsh as more of the God of Barbarians (not that I'd use that term) you might be able to work something. God of Raging Battle and individual prowess, a more personal soldier's god, say. You could layer on a more Odin-like God of strategy and war who feels more like a chieftain's god. This could be very cool if those two gods have competing agendas for their worshippers. Grummsh wants things to stay the same, or doesn't care, but Orc-odin wants Orcs to stop being so flippin' angry all the time and plan some shizz out for a change. The tension between Odin-Thor and Ares-Athena are good examples, slightly overlapping portfolios with different agendas.

 

[prabe]

I don't have gods in my setting, because I've never really liked the way D&D has handled them, but thinking on what @Fenris-77 says, it'd be tempting to have Gruumsh and Odin be aspects of the same deity--they're both one-eyed chief deities for warlike people.

 

[Aldarc]

That is interesting. So in your Nentir Vale, what is the main differences between Gruumsh Bane, Kord, and Bahamut as war gods?

Gruumsh: soldiers, battle
Bane: strategists, conquerors, generals, war
Kord: folk hero, athlete, physical might
Bahamut: rulers

It’s about like Ares, Athena, Hercules, and Zeus all having their own warlike or combative aspects.

 

[AmerginLiath]

I don’t think that Fury, War, and Destruction need be necessarily viewed as wholly negativistic. “Fury” can be presented as full emotional expression, not just rage. War and Destruction can be interpreted in terms of Creative Destruction, the constant tearing down and rebuilding/redefining of things. Rather than alignment or any sort of primitivism, consider orc identity (and their animosity with the elves) in the context of one of their prime defining traits: even moreso than humans, orcs have short lifespans and need to make their mark on the world NOW. an elf will slowly work on something over a century where other races won’t notice any change, while three or four generations of orcs will have torn down and built up things to try and leave some mark in that time. They don’t have time for social niceties or zoning ordinances — even compared to humans (who races like elves consider unruly children at best), who have at least that extra forty years to refine their individual legacies.

So the conflict of Gruumsh and Corellon is redefined even while keeping many of the same traits. Larethian doesn’t need to worry about deciding yet who he/she is or take the time to alter the natural world – he/she and their followers will basically be here for ever and can just prune and dilettante. But Gruumsh knows that his orcs are dying like mayflies with only a day to leave a mark; a mark that the likes of elves and dwarves won’t allow because it looks like vandalism or pillaging from their perspective of time. Humans come far closer to comprehending — hence why they’re the race that has relations (and relations) with the orcs — but even they live just long enough to maintain history in a different way, to be in not the same rush to leave a mark. The orc is a tragedy, whose “evil” (to refer to alignment descriptions, not morality per se) is a necessary self-centeredness, and whose one-eyed god is as much a symbol of the singular focus that their particular lifespan (long enough to leave a mark, but short enough that they need to do so now) leaves them.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I personally agree that if there was to be these lists of gods that people actively worship... there should be a list of things that these gods oversee that would make sense for people to care about and want a blessing for. And if that is the case... should the god really be assigned an alignment for it?

So for instance... I find it odd that there would be a god "in charge" of wrath, fury, and destruction. Because who exactly would feel the need to pray to or ask a blessing from this deity, and when would that happen? As it stands now... since Orcs in D&D have had this traditional idea that they are just bloodthirsty and crazed warriors who care for nothing but destroying everything in their path, then sure having Gruumsh as their patron deity would make sense. But if Orcs are not meant to be JUST that... then there seems to me to be something else that Gruumsh should have domain over. To give people a reason to worship Gruumsh when not furiously and wrathfully destroying things.

I honestly think this is where having too many gods does the entire pantheon a disservice. Because we end up pigeon-holing these deities into these extremely tight little domains in order to have them not step on each other's toes... but then it begs the question of how often is it necessary to pray to one of these people? You've got most of society praying to Oghma for his knowledge and intellect, but then this small subset of people over here that decide to light a candle to Deneir when they are writing stuff down? What's wrong with just praying to Oghma when writing stuff down? Why do we need another deity to cover it? What's gained by that?

And on that note... how come Deneir is Neutral Good? Why is writing stuff seen as purely a good thing? There's a crapton of stuff you write down that are completely neutral or even downright hurtful. So how come this god is considered a Neutral Good deity? This is the kind of query I've been wondering about over in the "Are Evil Gods Necessary?" thread... where I've been partially questioning as to whether or not divine gods should even have alignments.

 

[Fenris-77]

I might offer a prayer to a god of wrath and destruction when I was just about to, you know, unleash some wrath and destruction. Strategy and cold clinical skill are all fine and dandy, but that's a different thing than the blood, terror, and viscera of combat. You can nitpick the exact terms I suppose, but the general thrust is there. People pray to gods for what they need in the moment. Do I need a healthy baby? A good harvest? To survive in the pitiless wilds? Or to prevail in bloody, violent melee?

I'd agree that alignment for gods is odd, and really isn't my thing. The worshipers of those gods might have a general alignment, or set of alignments, and I guess the God might as well, but what seems to be the case is that people assign alignments to gods based on the domain, rather than the personality of the god. That I don't have a lot of time for.